break in my voice. “I can say goodbye to the rest of it, to school and to our teachers and to everyone else—but I can’t say goodbye to you.”
“You don’t have to.” He cups my face, running a thumb along my cheekbone. “This isn’t the end. Far from it, hopefully. If we haven’t annoyed each other to death by the end of the summer, then why can’t we keep going? New York and Boston aren’t that far apart.”
“A little over four hours, by train.” Exploring other cities with Neil—it sounds too wonderful.
“And we’ll be back here on breaks,” he says. “You and I have to always be the best, right? So we’ll be the best at long distance, if that’s what we decide to do. But right now…” He gestures to the room around us. “Right now, we have this.”
I let it sink in, trying to be okay with that uncertainty. As much as I’ve idealized the happily-ever-after, I can’t deny that he’s right. Today isn’t my epilogue with Neil—it’s a beginning.
I’ll leave the happily-ever-afters in the books.
“I think I can do that,” I say, and reach for him again.
The love that I wanted so desperately: this isn’t what I thought it would feel like. It’s made me dizzy and it’s grounded me. It’s made me laugh when nothing is funny. It shimmers and it sparks, but it can be comfortable, too, a sleepy smile and a soft touch and a quiet, steady breath. Of course this boy—my rival, my alarm clock, my unexpected ally—is at the center of it.
And somehow, it’s even better than I imagined.
Author’s Note
SEATTLE DIDN’T ALWAYS have my heart.
A city built on Duwamish land, Seattle has been inhabited for thousands of years. It was incorporated in 1869, after pioneers noted a lack of “marriageable women” and recruited about a hundred from the East Coast to serve as brides for the city’s early residents. The city flourished after a gold rush but lost its business district to the Great Seattle Fire of 1889, then quickly rebuilt. Two twentieth-century world’s fairs were instrumental in the city’s progress: first the Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in 1909, and then the Century 21 Exposition in 1962, which gave us the Space Needle. Today, Seattle is a hub for both start-ups and big tech.
I’ve lived here my whole life, first in a suburb known for its connection to Microsoft, then in a college neighborhood, and now on a hill in North Seattle not unlike where Rowan lives. As a teen, I was captivated by the idea of reinventing myself on the other side of the country, and I was eager to escape. I was sick of trees and clouds and gloom. When it became clear I’d be attending college in Seattle, I focused my energy on applying for internships and later jobs outside the state.
It wasn’t that I resigned myself to loving Seattle when nothing came to fruition. I didn’t feel stuck. Rather, it was a gradual appreciation of the sights and culture and people. The music, too—I have yet to meet someone who’s more of a music snob than someone who’s grown up in Seattle. I like to think Seattle and I have a relationship where I’m able to poke fun and the city doesn’t mind. I’m doing it out of love.
When we see Seattle in pop culture, we usually only get a piece of it: rain, the Space Needle, flannel. I wanted to dig deeper—and so the game of Howl was born. While this book takes place in a very real city, it’s a patchwork of present-day Seattle and the Seattle I grew up in. Many of the landmarks are presently intact: Cinerama, Pike Place Market and the gum wall, the Great Wheel, the Seattle Public Library, the Fremont Troll, Kerry Park. Some of them I took fictional liberties with. Sadly, the Woodland Park Zoo’s nocturnal exhibit is no longer open. It was shut down during the recession, and though there were plans to rebuild, a fire in the building put those plans on hold. The Museum of the Mysteries was once a real place in Capitol Hill, but now exists online only at nwlegendsmuseum.com. I should also mention that Rowan and Neil really have quite incredible luck finding parking spots.
When I began writing Today Tonight Tomorrow, it was important to me that Rowan love Seattle, even if she was committed to leaving it behind for college. This book is a love letter to love, but it was a love letter to